Submit A Memory
I was in a crib that was in a place we lived when I was very tiny. I think I wanted to stand up, but I hadn't gotten the drift yet of how to do that, so I was sitting in the crib. My mother was in the room, and I wanted to be picked up. I put out my arms to let her know what I wanted. I remember she looked right at me, straight in the eye, then turned and left the room. When she was gone, I went into such a deep despair. I knew there was nothing for me.
Posted By: Tess S.
freelance humanoid, L.A.
I have lots of memories. The first one that always comes up is learning to walk. I have focused and clear memories starting from when I was crawling pretty well. I remember finding myself standing up, falling, and being more comfortable crawling. Then I remember crawling was less and less comfortable. It seemed like I was standing up more and more of the time and then walking.
Posted By: George Maupin
Software Developer, Kingston, Washington
My first memory was being very aware that I was sick and had chicken pox. I was 9 months old. I was on vacation with my family in upstate New York (Lake George, I believe), and we were staying in a cabin with another family. I remember my crib being at the bottom of the stairs, but my mom said that was not true. I remember waking up in my crib, right as the sun was coming up. The cabin was still dark, and I was very sick and covered with chicken pox. I could see them on my arms. I remember wanting my mom and dad to wake up, desperately. I don't remember if I cried, I imagine I did. But I do remember looking outside the window and seeing a squirel or chipmunk in a tree branch.
There are no photos from this trip, so I know my memory is not confused with photographs. I also remember this very vividly, including the emotions. I ended up with severe chicken pox and was hospitalized with them for about a week.
Posted By: C. M.
I'm not sure the order these come in, but there are five memories that I have from before I was one, after I was born and before I was one. That's for certain. The first one I recall specifically, very vividly, is two pieces of music - two songs, that is. My mother was a professional musician and I traveled with her on the road from when I was born until age 5. Of course, I didn't kow the names of the songs at that point in my life, but later on, I found out the names were "Begin the Beguine" and "I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire." Also, sheep. That's the second memory. My grandparents had thousands of sheep. They kept some of those that were blind right at the ranch house. I was at the ranch a lot, and I remember feeling their wool. My grandmother would hold me up to touch them. Third, I remember a lot of pain and doctors hovering over me in a room. Later on in life, I found out that I had a lot of problems with my ears. There was light on a table nearby. It wasn't casting a lot of light into the room. I remember looking up and seeing those people, and they were doing something with my ears. Fourth, I remember something I didn't know what it was at the time. I just remember these big white squares on the grass with brown things on them. Thousands of pieces of brown things. Later I learned that my grandmother, who had an apple orchard, would peel and core the apples and cut them up in pieces and put them out on the front yard of the ranch house on sheets to dry in the sun. Fifth, I can remember my grandmother holding me up to touch and feel flowers that I found out later were morning glories.
Posted By: Bruce Davis
Writer, Poulsbo, Washington
Sometimes I'd be kept in the crib too long, and I would rock it. This was at a time when I'm pretty sure I couldn't talk. I'd just grab the end of the crib and rock it and rock it and rock it and rock it. The crib would move across the floor a little, and I'd end up blocking the door!
Posted By: Sheila Anderson
Happy Grandmother, Gig Harbor
I was in a big baby carriage with a hood on it. The carriage was parked in a vestibule of my home when an alarm went off. Mom says it's impossible that I remember that because the alarm was disconnected when I was 7 months old. I am 50 now, but clearly remember looking up at the bulb on the ceiling and hearing the alarm go off. [This memory was originally submitted on Tuesday, April 11, 2000 at 07:32:11 (PDT) to the Exploratorium Earliest Memory Website, which ceased accepting input in 2000. See www.exploratorium.edu/memory/earlymemory/memoryform.html for some of the submissions.]
Posted By: Rochelle Davis
Since I have clear, well-documented memories from less than a year old (used to scare and bother some people bigtime), I choose to just simply describe my first, clear memory as a baby girl of about 10 months. My grandmother placed me in an old wash basin to cool off from a warm, slightly muggy, Kentucky summer. [Submitted to Ralph Moore's 2002 website http://www.ralphrobertmoore.com/interactive.html#memory. Since then, the website has been updated and this submission lost.]
Posted By: J. D.
My first recollections are of some infantine impressions which were in abeyance for a long course of years, and then revived in an inexplicable way,—as by a flash of lightning over a far horizon in the night. There is no doubt of the genuineness of the remembrance, as the facts could not have been told me by any one else. I remember standing on the threshold of a cottage, holding fast by the doorpost, and putting my foot down, in repeated attempts to reach the ground. Having accomplished the step, I toddled (I remember the uncertain feeling) to a tree before the door, and tried to clasp and get round it; but the rough bark hurt my hands. At night of the same day, in bed, I was disconcerted by the coarse feel of the sheets,—so much less smooth and cold than those at home; and I was alarmed by the creaking of the bedstead when I moved. It was a turn-up bedstead in a cottage, or small farmhouse, at Carleton, where I was sent for my health, being a delicate child. [The author wrote this in 1877 on page 7 of her autobiography.]
Posted By: Harriet Martineau
Author and Journalist, Boston
I can recall a little group of young faces—schoolgirls, I fancy—smiling down on me in admiration!—the feminine kind that never fails an infant. And that can hardly but have been before I could talk. But there is no means of making certain. [Written in 1935 on pages 172 -173 in the author's book, Early One Morning in the Spring.]
Posted By: Walter de la Mare
Author and Poet, England
To my great joy, I am able to bring from my 12th, or at furthest my 14th month, one pale, little remembrance, like the earliest and frailest of snowdrops, from the fresh soil of childhood. I recollect, namely, that a poor scholar loved me much, and that I returned his love, and that he carried me about in his arms, and later, took me more agreeably by the hand to the large, dark apartment of the older children, where he gave me milk to drink. This form, vanishing in distance, and his love, hover again over later years, but alas! I no longer remember his name. . . . This little morning star of earliest recollection stands yet tolerably clear in its low horizon, but growing paler as the daylight of life rises higher. [This was written in 1849 on page 19 of the author's autobiography.]
Posted By: Jean Paul Richter
Poet, Germany
